U.N.C.L.E. in Retrospect: Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Life, I Learned from U.N.C.L.E.
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| Title: | U.N.C.L.E. in Retrospect: Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Life, I Learned from U.N.C.L.E. |
| Creator: | C. W. Walker |
| Date(s): | early to mid-2000s? |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | Man from U.N.C.L.E. |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | U.N.C.L.E. IN RETROSPECT: EVERYTHING I EVER NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT LIFE, I LEARNED FROM U.N.C.L.E., Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
U.N.C.L.E. in Retrospect: Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Life, I Learned from U.N.C.L.E. is an Man from U.N.C.L.E. essay by C. W. Walker.
Excerpts
Even without color, I was hooked from the start. Soon, the whole neighborhood was hooked, too. We watched U.N.C.L.E. We read U.N.C.L.E. We collected U.N.C.L.E. We played U.N.C.L.E. We cannibalized pens for communicators; substituted "Good n' Plenty" candies (but only the white ones) for the notorious Capsule B; strapped makeshift shoulder holsters containing plastic Lugers to our sides. Looking back, it seems I was constantly armed as a child.
I was an U.N.C.L.E. agent.
For all kids my age, U.N.C.L.E. marked an important passage of adolescence. For the girls however, U.N.C.L.E. also prompted a sexual awakening. Like baby ducks who imprint on a German shepherd and then follow it around for life, we focused our budding erotic energies on one of the two male leads. For the majority, of course, it was the blond-haired, blue-eyed Illya. I was in the minority. (I still prefer dark-haired, dark-eyed men.) But I didn't just love Napoleon Solo. I also wanted to be like Solo, too.
As an adult, I came to understand:
- That personal commitment and moral responsibility are preferable to money and power.
- That both good and evil work covertly, and often, it requires attention and involvement to discriminate one from the other.
- That you might lose a battle, but you can still win the war, so long as you remain cool under fire and are willing to lay it all on the line.
- And that in the end, the secret of life is courage, style and a little witty repartee.
My view of the world may be more complicated, more sophisticated now, but the lessons I learned long ago remain essentially the same. And I can't help but wonder how many other people there are, whose lives were similarly affected. For a brief time in the sixties, "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." was the most popular show in the world --- in the world!
I suspect we are legion. We are an entire generation, the field agents of today, and we are everywhere.
Now, we operate undercover, discreetly and secretly --- sometimes even to ourselves. We carry invisible gold cards in our wallets. We respond to the call of silent communicators. We ally ourselves with the innocent. We oppose the grasping minions of Thrush. We work for human dignity, for social justice and for a peaceful future.